Installment Agreement Testimonial
/The financial crisis of 2008 totally killed our business. As people lost their homes in foreclosure, the first expense they cut was landscaping and yard maintenance. Unfortunately, Chicago had an extremely mild winter as well, which cut into our winter snow plowing business. But the time the IRS caught up with us, we owed over $100,000 employment taxes.
Luckily we hired Mr. Ryder’s firm to negotiate resolution with the IRS. My brother and I operate the business and the IRS determined that we were equally responsible for the unpaid taxes. Thus, the IRS assessed us both the trust fund recovery penalty as responsible and willful individuals. Tom Ryder successfully negotiated personal payment plans for both my brother and I in order to avoid personal liens. While we made our personal payments, the business also got credits, so we were killing two birds with one stone.
Mr. Ryder also successfully negotiated an installment agreement for the business that we could manage. Meanwhile, we ran into difficulties with the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES), and Mr. Ryder set up a payment plan with them as well. IDES had seized $30,000 from our bank account, but he negotiated a partial levy release so we could operate the business while IDES kept a healthy chunk for their down payment. The IRS also hit us with additional FUTA tax since we hadn’t paid IDES on time. After paying IDES, Mr. Ryder got the FUTA tax 90% abated, which saved over $10,000.
Tom Ryder also drafted a Penalty Abatement Request, but we lost both the IRS Collection Division and Appeals. They said we didn’t establish reasonable cause for our temporary non-compliance. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all. Thankfully, we nearly have the IRS paid off, and hopefully never have similar problems again. All in all, I would recommend calling Ryder & Associates with any tax problem since they are attentive to our needs and easy to work with.
Mr. B.
Cook County, Illinois